Book Reviews

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Beyond the Bengali Gåjan festival and its celebrated deity, this book is about the greater concept of the divine within a particular society. The author also draws attention to the highly genderized status of ritual performances by its male participants. In the background of the festival and its genderized male performers is the goddess Gåjan, who is associated with the ancestral worship of the earth, and Dharmaråj, who is the groom of the goddess and its sacrificial male victim because he must be killed/sacrificed periodically to ensure the fertility of the earth. Over the course of time, the celebration of the marriage of a female deity with her spouse and the predominance of the goddess becomes overshadowed due to the spread and influence of Bråhma~ic culture that stresses the importance of Dharmaråj who becomes connected to the pan-Indian deity Çiva.
The structure of the book is shaped by the author's use of a combination of anthropological fieldwork and primary texts. The first chapter examines two important texts, the Ç¨nya Purå~a and the Dharma-p¨jåbidhåna, while the second chapter focuses on the origin and development of Dharmaråj. The third chapter concentrates on rites performed by male devotees that represent examples of self-abasement and self-torture by highlighting such behavior as the piercing of the body with sharp instruments, jumping or lying on thorns or sharp metal points, and self-flagellation; whereas Chapter 4 discusses how men and women separately enact motherhood during the festival. Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the decaying aspect of the earth and its relation to the chthonic world, including a look at rituals associated with handling fire and walking on burning coals. In addition, male devotees engage in the ultimate form of renunciation-ma®å khelå-the dance of the dead, which is performed with human corpses and skulls on the final night of the festival outside of public places of worship or Bråhma~a neighborhoods. By holding a human head, the devotee pretends to be Çiva or Bhairava, an especially gruesome aspect of the great God. During this part of the festival, female spirits, local goddesses or female plague deities possess men. The author interprets the festival as the killing of death (winter) and regeneration of the earth.
In order to regenerate the earth-goddess, males seek to cool her by experiencing penetration and bleeding in imitation of the goddess, a feminine pattern that strives to destroy masculinity and turn males into ritual women. Examples of this scenario are discussed in the third chapter with attention called to self-immolation and hook-swinging, which are practiced in order to experience what it is like to be pregnant (seeding) and deliver a child (harvesting). Macabre dances are performed to imitate the goddess as a post-menopausal woman. The author interprets men subjecting their own bodies to piercings and blood-lettings as representing a desire to expiate guilt and become pure. Since men are biologically incapable of menstruation, it is necessary for men to become, artificially and temporarily, women. The author also sees in this type of action a synthesis of devotional religion with forms of asceticism.
The author is convinced of the usefulness of anthropology and psychoanalysis as an approach to his subject. He interprets, for example, the final phase of the festival in the following way: "Through ma®å khelå, the devotee aims to transform his male ego into a feminine one by expressing a castration anxiety and then realizing it through decapitation and dismemberment" (193). In addition to this type of interpretation, the author embraces a more radical attitude to anthropology that conceives it as more open-ended by moving from description to hermeneutics and beyond to a further level that he defines in the following way: "I refer to a dialogical plan where the examination of similar rituals from different cultures may stimulate the development (and strengthening) of methodological approaches and create an academic debate on the way consensus may be obtained (or denied) or conclusions arrived at" (217).
Whatever the reader thinks of the author's methodological approach and efforts to interpret what he finds, this informative study is an essential reading for anyone interested in ritual, goddess devotion, Bengali culture, and issues of gender. The book is lucidly written, carefully descriptive and judiciously interpretative, and helps the reader make sense of some strange religious behavior by setting such actions within their religious and cultural context. From a mildly critical perspective, it would have been useful for the author to discuss more fully the role of pain and the ascetic aspects of the festival. Nonetheless, this book is a welcome addition to work on Bengali religious culture and the study of religion in general.

Desire and Motivation in Indian
Philosophy tackles the question of whether desireless action is a contradiction. A number of contemporary philosophers believe that desire is a necessary condition for action. This premise leads to the basic problem that action is not possible for one who is perfectly desireless. Such a person would be incapable of acting intentionally in the absence of desire. Serious repercussions for some classical Indian philosophical traditions follow if desireless action is indeed a contradiction. In fact, liberation itself would not be possible if desireless action is a required condition for liberation. This is a vexing issue for the interpretation and understanding of seminal Indian texts such as the Bhagavad G tå. It leads us to question whether K®‚~a's council to Arjuna regarding desireless action (ni‚kåma karma) is a contradiction when taken literally. While other scholars have made attempts to solve the basic issue, Christopher G. Framarin's work is the most thorough to date. Framarin extends a principle of charity to classical texts, recognizing that the authors and commentators were surely aware of the apparent contradiction of desireless action. Yet he utilizes an unapologetically critical lens.
He raises a number of salient issues, such as whether to take a literal or non-literal interpretation of textual passages discussing desireless action, or whether the Indian traditions accept the separation of permissible and impermissible desires to solve the contradiction. He also explores whether Indian philosophies accept the claim that action entails desire in the first place. Through these discussions he attempts to retrieve the meaning of desireless action and ultimately argues for its coherence. His analysis pays particular attention to the Bhagavad G tå, but spans a number of other seminal texts with chapters devoted to the Yogas¨tra, Manusm®ti, Nyåyas¨tra and Brahmasiddhi. The inclusion of Ma~ anamiçra's Brahmasiddhi is a welcome addition, as scholars have often overlooked his deep influence on Indian philosophy.
Framarin spends a significant portion of the book analyzing the separation of permissible and impermissible desires and reasons that this interpretation is not plausible. He further argues that the seminal texts he looks at deny the claim that desire is a necessary condition of action, and that such a claim is also philosophically unconvincing. Therefore, theories of motivation in these seminal texts are plausible and consistent. Perhaps most importantly, Framarin points out the ambiguity of the word "desire" and distinguishes two senses of "desire." "Desire" possesses the sense of purpose, reason or goal for acting, as well as the sense of a narrow set of mental states that can be contrasted with beliefs and intentions. The problem of desireless action depends on a confusion of these two senses. Framarin contends that purpose, not mental state, is the necessary condition of action. When desire is understood in the second sense, then acting without desire is plausible for it does not exclude purpose and reason for action.
Framarin employs an analytical approach to his central problematic. His style is somewhat technical but lucid and well organized. He lays out each argument step by step and schematizes them in their logical form with premises and conclusions. He then examines their coherence, potential fallacies, and further variations and permutations. By exhausting the variations he steadily leads the reader to his conclusions. Framarin's writing is clear even for the non-specialist, though it does require careful reading to keep track of the subtle yet crucial nuances separating his arguments. In key places he also engages in dialogue with other scholars working on desire and motivation in both Indian and Western philosophy.
The final chapter provides an insightful critique of the Humean view of motivation to strengthen the coherence of desireless action.
A strong point of this work is its rigorous use of primary texts in conjunction with an analytical philosophical approach. Framarin provides his own translations of key Sanskrit passages. His translations lean toward a literal style, which will be more favorable to Sanskrit scholars due to the ease of moving between translation and Sanskrit transliteration. He also includes three appendices with relevant passages translated from the Manusm®ti, Nyåyas¨tra, and Brahmasiddhi; however, these do not include their Sanskrit transliterations.
Framarin covers a number of interesting issues in this work, though at times he does not flesh them out to the reader's satisfaction. The distinction of two senses of desire could be delineated in more detail early on in the book. He could also delve deeper into the relationship of desireless action with the Bhagavad G tå's approach to karma yoga and divinity, or more clearly articulate the intricacies and paradoxes of desire and action for one liberated while living. On the other hand, one of the merits of his work is its clear and sustained focus, which resists diversion into related topics.
Desire and Motivation in Indian Philosophy is a welcome and needed addition to the literature. The arguments made by Framarin lead to specific interpretations of content found in the Bhagavad G tå and other seminal texts. If his account is correct, we can take a literal reading of passages dealing with desireless action, rather than a tortuous non-literal interpretation. His work also has potential implications for moral issues and theories underlying ritual action in Indian philosophy. Framarin's discussion is not just valuable to Indian philosophers and scholars studying classical Indian texts, but for the broader community of contemporary philosophers addressing themselves to issues of desire and motivation.

Neil Dalal
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada Shonaleeka Kaul, Imagining the Urban: Sanskrit and the City in Early India. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2011.
In Shonaleeka Kaul's opinion, the present state of urban studies manifests a preponderantly archaeological perspective, which places limitations on urban studies that are focused on the material aspects of culture. In order to supplement the archaeological viewpoint and to offer a broader approach to urban studies, the author suggests that a case can be made for using the kåvya literature (for example, poetry, drama, tale, and biography) that presents imaginative representations of the city in India. By following this path of scholarship, Kaul intends to look beyond conventional representations grounded in archaeological findings to the imaginative rationale behind the presence of the city in this type of literature. Kaul's book begins with a period of Indian history that is referred to as the second urbanization, which occurs with the rise of cities in the Gangetic Valley and the northern peninsula near the middle of the first millennium, whereas the initial urbanization is dated and identified with the Indus Valley civilization during the third millennium BCE. By focusing on the former without completely neglecting the latter period of urbanization, the author makes a case for the kåvyas as the primary form of urban literature. By comprehending the kåvya literature in this way, Kaul insightfully observes that the urban universe of this literature manifests a multi-universe. In fact, the ancient city of India demonstrates contrary and multiple images.
These manifold images are elucidated in the astute structure of the book. The initial two chapters examine the physical dimensions of the city, with Chapter 1 looking at the external aspect and Chapter 2 investigating the internal world of the city. The external structure of the city includes a comparison to other forms of space, such as villages, pastures, forests and other cities, offering a much broader grasp of the structure of the city. Chapter 2 and its internal examination of the city discusses the layout and plan of the city, royal road, royal palace, residential buildings, non-residential buildings, market place, and sacred landscape provided by temples that are scattered across the city. The author argues that the royal road serves as the center of the city and not the temples or royal palace.
But cities are more than material structures. They are populated by an interesting array of actors that play various parts in the everyday life of the city. Referring to masculine and feminine archetypes, Kaul discusses the man-about-town, libertine, courtesan and family woman in Chapter 3, while she also covers the ascetic, Bråhma~a and king in Chapter 4. The courtesan is among the most interesting characters inhabiting the city because she is simultaneously property, mercenary, deceptive, desirable, and coveted. These various everyday characters of city life combine to manifest a kåma culture and the social order. The author means that the city and its inhabitants reside at the center of an ethic of pleasure in the sense of seeking a refined type of pleasure more associated with fine art, instead of raw instinctual drive. The author also calls attention to the social structure of the city and its correspondence with the physical structure.
The author demonstrates an immersion in archaeological findings and a wide exposure to kåvya literature of which she makes creative use. This book has implications not only for urban studies and archaeology, but also for Indian religion within an urban setting, politics, history, literature and sociology. The author's approach allows her to make some insightful observations about urban life, and represents an important contribution to Indian urban studies. When reading this book, however, one is prompted to ask what represents urban reality and what stands for the imagination of the kåvya writer? How much of the depiction of the city is based on the reality of the time period? To what extent can we trust the various classical authors to give readers, far removed from the time period, an accurate picture of the everyday dramas being enacted in ancient Indian cities? If the classical Indian authors are anything like modern writers, they probably made good use of what they witnessed and used it to create their images of the urban environment within which they composed their works.

Carl Olson
Allegheny The subject of this book is the relatively understudied sect of the Nåths, which originated in North India in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The movement adheres to teachings of Gorak‚anåth, a student of Matsyendranåth who is also accepted as a Buddhist saint, and yog s play a pivotal role within it. The Nåth Yogins place themselves within the context of eighty-four, a number associated with completeness or totality, Siddhas, immortal demigods or teachers of the tradition who reside in the Himalayan region of India. Within the movement, elements from ancient pre-Hindu and pre-Buddhist views and practices are combined. Its members are also known as the Kånpha †å Yogins because of their practice of having their ears pierced for the insertion of huge earrings, which was believed to assist in the acquisition of yogic powers. Having a close connection to the ha †ha school of yoga and a tendency to align themselves with the Çaiva tradition, the Nåths seek to gain power by means of yogic practice and eventually become like the deity Çiva, although they tend to worship the nirgu~a aspect of God, which stresses the formless and indescribable aspects of the deity. The book is divided into two parts: Yogis in History, and Theology and Folklore. In the first part, Purushottam Agrawal looks at the ways in which various twentieth-century scholars viewed the early Nåths, while David N. Lorenzen addresses the complex ideas about religious identity located in the poetry of Gorakh and draws a comparison with the poetry of Kab r and Sikh gurus. Daniel God examines how the tradition merged with the local culture of Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, while Ishita Banerjee-Dube traces the influence of Nåth Yoga and Tantra in a religious tradition known as Mahimå Dharma located in Orissa.
The second part of the book begins with David Gordon White's examination of a text attributed to Goraknåth in which he speculates about the nature of the human body and its identity with the universe. The next essay is by Ann Grodzins Gold, who focuses on two Nåth legends and what they teach about almsgiving and begging. Reviewing the Hindi legend about Matsyendra and Gorakh and its relation to the wider body of Nåth literary works, Adrián Muñoz argues that Gorakh attempted to expunge sexual practices from the tradition. In an especially interesting essay, Lubomir Ondra ka discusses Gorakh's efforts to rescue Matsyendra from his attachment to sensual temptations. This essay also contains an interesting discussion of the four moons and their esoteric significance. The final essay by Csaba Kiss focuses on the connection between Nåthism and Tantra by examining a text connected to the Çåmbhava tradition in South India.
The nine high-quality essays that constitute this book make uniformly significant contributions to our knowledge of the Nåths, and can greatly enrich our understanding of these yog s. They fill in some gaps in the scholarship and suggest future directions for study. Readers will also find the bibliography very useful for additional research. The editors and contributors deserve our thanks for producing this fine collection of essays.

Carl Olson
Allegheny There are authors whose words come as a kind of revelation-and just when they are needed. Such is the case with D.R Nagaraj and his The Flaming Feet and Other Essays. Nagaraj, the late Kannada literary and social critic, political commentator and director of the Centre for Translation at the National Academy of Letters, Bangalore, offers penetrating insights into the state of the Dalit movement, where it has been and where it should go. A "fellow traveler" with the movement, his partners in conversation indicate this self-described atiçudra's catholicity of thought: Martin Heidegger and Någårjuna, Kannada littérateur Devanuru Mahadeva and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Båp¨j and Båbåsåheb, the Dalit Kannada poet Siddhalingaiah and the medieval Marathi Jñåneçvar .
Nagaraj's former student, Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi, ably collected and edited additional essays and lectures for this publication, penned up to the time of the author's premature death in 1998 at the age of fortyfour. Thus ten of this book's sixteen chapters are published for the first time in English. Ashis Nandy writes a fitting tribute to Nagaraj in the Forward, placing him within the broader context of Dalit activism and post-colonial India, and in the Introduction the editor frames the life and thought of the man whom Arjun Appadurai believed could have been the next Ambedkar. The result is a rich, timely, tripartite book organized under three broad themes: Part I: Gandhi and Ambedkar, Part II: Politics and Cultural Memory, and Part III: Dalit Literature. Of special interest to readers of the IJHS are: (i) the reconciliation of Ambedkar and Gandhi as social activists and religious leaders who mutually transformed one another in their contentious encounters during the 1930s, (ii) the necessity of Dalit re-appropriation of indigenous Dalit deities, practices, and histories as part of the broader project of cultural renewal, (iii) the rejection of any exclusivist approach treating Dalits as fundamentally, even ontologically separate from caste Hindus, a treatment necessitating that Dalits learn in greater depth about the various worldviews of caste Hindu traditions as well, and (iv) the demonstration of what modernity has wrought not just on Dalits but on technological and traditional communities, victims of what he calls "technocide" (179).
Nagaraj's reconciliation of Ambedkar and Gandhi a half century after Indian independence demonstrates in miniature the thinker's broader project rejecting binary oppositions-religio-cultural inclusivism/exclusivism, secular/religious, folk/classical, city/village-in favor of a dialectical mixture of tendencies within the Dalit movement and South Asian culture. According to the author, Ambedkar and Gandhi actually expanded and sharpened one another's vision. Gandhi's inclusive strategy for the "Harijan" called for a change of caste Hindu hearts in the locus of the village through a creative interpretation of Hindu scriptures; Ambedkar trusted neither village nor caste Hinduism as a locus of justice for the "Dalit," resulting in a outright rejection of Hinduism and a rather naïve trust in the benefits of modernity. It would appear that both mistakenly understood Hinduism and the category "Dalit" as a unified, undifferentiated whole. These views had a lasting influence on the Dalit movement subsequently for good and ill, leading to self-pity and outrage, where many Dalits rejected any connection to Bråhma~ical Hinduism, and thus alienated themselves from their ancestors' contestations within a Hindu framework. Nagaraj writes: "Because of this confrontation [over separate communal electorates], both of them had changed their emphasis: to put it crudely, Gandhiji had taken over economics from Babasaheb and Ambedkar had internalized the importance of religion" (56). Sadly, their followers failed to see the underlying unity shared by both figures. "It is not an easy task to iron out the differences between the two masters, but the necessities of the present are forcing us to see their inner commonality" (57). This then is the task of Dalits today-to create a new cultural politics by drawing from these masters and from a treasury of symbolic and religious life, and to thereby nurture the emergence of a new Dalit individual in literature and in society, from the ground up.
A scholar comfortable traversing that rather rocky ground is Badri Narayan, professor of Social History and Cultural Anthropology at the Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad. In Fascinating Hindutva, Narayan demonstrates through ethnographic and discursive analyses of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar the recent Hindutva practice of mobilizing Dalits for the purpose of shoring up political power and a unified, militant brand of Hinduism. According to Narayan, in the new Indian democratic dispensation, Dalits are needed by caste Hindus to secure political success, and newly politicized and striving Dalits and Other Backwards Classes have proven ripe for Hindutva inclusion and co-optation. Having failed to enlist the Dalit masses during the 1980s-1990s Råmjanambh¨m movement, Hindu nationalists have taken to "saffronizing" local Dalit myths and heroes or to elevating certain Dalit characters found in the Råmåya~a. The result, the author argues, is that once mostly peaceful multi-religious communities are succumbing to communal tensions, with Dalits enlisted to defend caste Hindus in their fight against Islam and Christianity.
The author provides many examples of this process of "saffronization" or "Rama-ization" in eight chapters. The Dusådhs of northern Bihar worship the folk-hero Sålhes, believed to have been a Çudra who rose against the odds and the wiles of upper castes to become a king of the Mithila and Nepal-Bihar region. Today he is worshipped, sought for healing, and said to visit devotees in their dreams. In the hands of Hindu nationalists he is now being transformed into an avatår of Lord Råm through co-optation of Sålhes' bhagats and through the production of plays, festivals and statuary. In this way, Narayan argues, Hindu nationalists hope to win Dusådhs into their fold and worldview leading to political victory.
Narayan's most recent study, along with his earlier work (Documenting Dissent: Contesting Fables, Contested Memories and Dalit Political Discourse [2001] and Women Heroes and Dalit Assertion in North India [2006]), demonstrates that the act of creating what Nagaraj calls a new "cultural politics" can cut both ways, towards the BSP or the BJP, towards saffronization or Ambedkarization, or-rejecting the binary opposition-to something that creatively combines various processes towards emancipation. The act of such creative re-appropriation of Dalit deities, practices and histories is a contested, political one, where those who shape the memory of Dalit pasts can control their futures.
For those who desire less discourse analysis and more empirical data, there is Dalits in India, written by Sukhdeo Thorat, chairman of the University Grants Commission and professor of Economics at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Thorat and his team carefully interpret data provided by the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi, of which Thorat is a trustee, demonstrating empirically the status of Dalits on state and all-India levels. Zoya Hasan observes in her Politics of Inclusion: Castes, Minorities and Affirmative Action (2009) that political emancipation reflected in affirmative action programs is often wrongly identified with full social emancipation. The merit of Thorat's book is that it shows clearly the levels of Dalit-by which is meant Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribesexclusion, deprivation, and marginalization operative throughout India up through the 2001 census. The text includes 170 pages of useful annexures-from the list of presidential orders promulgated on behalf of Scheduled Castes between 1950 and 1978, to a state-by-state breakdown of crimes committed against Scheduled Castes up to 2001. Thus through statistical description and analysis this work benefits those requiring concrete statistical evidence (and its interpretation) at the state and central levels. For at least the next decade this useful reference will help its users gage the accomplishments of the Dalit movement while exposing in careful detail all that remains to be fulfilled.
Despite their differing methodologies, none of these three authors are dispassionate observers of the Dalit movement. They would likely argue that the current status of India's marginalized precludes dispassion. But their commitment to the cause stimulated by what Nagaraj calls "critical humanism," rather than obscuring their vision sharpens it, so that the Dalit movement and the state claiming to support Dalits might continue to work for the social emancipation of all of India's marginalized in intelligent, innovative and constructive ways, to the benefit of all India's citizens. Despite their clear significance for religious practitioners, decorative elements such as ephemeral floral stage sets, adornments such as jewelry and clothing, and temple furnishings remain overlooked in the scholarship on both Hinduism and South Asian Art History. Cynthia Packert's extensive and detailed study of the decorative practices surrounding the worship of K®‚~a intervenes in this state of affairs to deepen our understanding of the way ornament and spectacle operate in the varied temporal and spatial locations where the deity resides. Her work brings together anthropological methods and a keen visual sensibility; the strength of the book lies in Packert's incisive visual analysis coupled with her sensitivity to the voices and activities that make up the complex histories, politics, and spectacles related to the veneration of K®‚~a.
After an opening chapter that sets the stage for an understanding of K®‚~a, the landscape of Braj and the history of worship in the region, Packert turns to three analyses of the relationship between history, ritual practice and ornament, focusing in turn on the Rådhårama~a, Rådhåvallabha and Govindadeva temples. Her final chapter examines the global reach of K®‚~a's ornamented body. Each of the chapters offers a thick description in the Geertzian mode, an indication of Packert's commitment to engaging both the materiality of her subject and the flavor of her experiences in relation to these multi-sensory spectacles. Temporality anchors the book as a central theme: Packert guides readers through not only yearly and daily cycles of three different temples, but also powerful moments when the past emerges in the present.
Throughout, Packert engages with the centrality of ornament for the all-encompassing (not just visual) experience of darçana, pointing out the myriad ways that slight changes in décor or in the choice of color signal different moments in the time of day, year or worship calendar that in turn, evoke different emotions and responses in temple visitors. While she does not use this terminology, one way to read Packert's book is as an iconographic roadmap: through her descriptions, readers begin to see the complex layers of meanings, historical references, marks of patronage and sensorial frameworks in the staging of the temple for the deity. And yet, iconography is too static a term to describe what Packert does here. Instead, she provides us with ways to "learn how to see anew" (76)-calling for a reconfiguration of scholarly ways of seeing and knowing that opens a door to the wider experiential flavor of K®‚~a worship.
Because Packert's research depends on the generosity of those administering the temples, her narrative often explores the flow of patronage, both in terms of funding and in terms of energy and attention paid to ornamentation. She provides glimpses into the inner workings of, for example, the storage of K®‚~a's and Rådhå's many outfits, the sharing of patronage duties among hereditary gôsvåm families, and the farreaching collaborative efforts that link fashion houses in Paris with local people employed to weave elaborate floral surrounds. The book also offers glimpses into the tension between a rising nouveau-riche and longstanding patrons, discussing controversies surrounding a jeans-andmobile-phone outfit donated at Vrindavan's Bånke Bihår temple as well as the sparer decoration at the Barsånå Dhåm temple complex outside of Austin, Texas. Packert provides insightful analyses of these moments in relation to the wider context of temple ornament-both instances challenge ingrained ways of seeing, enabling a retraining of the eye in the face of unexpected elements-but she stops short of exploring links to class and the changing economic context.
Packert turns to the politics of patronage, particularly in the chapter on the Govindadeva temple, where the history of the image's shift to Jaipur is followed by an incisive discussion of the contemporary struggles over the royal or civic administration of the temple. Packert overlays this "ownership" tension with the cityscape, narrating the procession of the deity through the streets of Jaipur along with the preparatory hype associated with the occasion. The arguments in this chapter speak to wider debates regarding the active participation of the deity in politics, addressing work by Richard H. Davis, Tapati Guha-Thakurta, and Saloni Mathur. All three images of K®‚~a discussed here are "self-manifestations" of the deity: their agency is demonstrated in the way the god might tell his caretakers what he wants to wear. Packert grounds her argument in the active role of all involved, from deity and patron to artisan and worshipper. Packert's voice balances scholarly distance with an acknowledgment of her personal experience in these temples and in conversation with other visitors. The book thus pushes art historical discourse into areas more often traversed by anthropologists, as Packert details her own transformative experiences in proximity to the god, describes her patronage of a floral ba galå for the Rådhåvallabha temple (including her own attempt to help embroider the flowers), and recounts the jostling involved when darçana commences. In this, Packert's book joins scholarship by Pika Ghosh, Katherine Hacker, and Stephen P. Huyler who have eschewed a tone of scholarly disinterest to include their presence and influence as scholars.
The Art of Loving Krishna will also be of interest to those concerned to connect the textual and the visual. Her method of thick description derives from the acknowledgment that the traditions she studies offer models of "description-obsessed theology" (56) as seen in the poetic narratives detailing the adornment of the god. She focuses her attention on the details and the processes of their emergence because, as she reminds herself and her readers: "what was important was the process of giving and not its products-in other words, the poetry and not the grammar" (105; emphasis in original).

Rebecca M. Brown
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore This is a translation and introduction to the Jaimin ya Åçvamedhika Parvan, also known as Jaimin yåçvamedha, a Sanskrit text probably dating from the twelfth century. The Jaimin ya Åçvamedhika Parvan presents itself as the Åçvamedhika Parvan (Book of the Horse Sacrifice) within a "Jaimin ya Bhårata." In other words, its form suggests that it is a part of a larger text, a different version of the Mahåbhårata. Henceforth, I refer to the Jaimin ya Åçvamedhika Parvan as JAP, and to the famous classical text (as extant in numerous manuscripts and reconstructed by the BORI Critical Edition) as the "Vyåsa Mahåbhårata." Shekhar Kumar Sen's translation is based on the Sanskrit edition of the Gita Press.
In the Vyåsa Mahåbhårata, Vyåsa's student Vaiçampåyana narrates the story for the first time to King Janamejaya on the occasion of his snake sacrifice in the presence of Vyåsa and his other students. In the JAP, it is Jaimini who narrates the story to Janamejaya. Even though Vyåsa is not the narrator, Vyåsa does appear within the narrative as a character. For example, Jaimini recounts to Janamejaya a dialogue between Vyåsa and Yudhi‚ †hira about dharma (JAP 8,. Because Jaimini is the narrator, the JAP has traditionally been ascribed to Jaimini. The idea that Jaimini was the author of a version of the Mahåbhårata other than the Vyåsa Mahåbhårata is based on two verses in the Vyåsa Mahåbhårata (1.67.74-75). These verses recount that Vyåsa taught the Mahåbhårata to his son Çuka and to his other four students-Sumantu, Jaimini, Paila, and Vaiçampåyana. Each student then taught it separately in his own way. However, as of now, a complete Jaimin ya Bhårata is not extant.
Sen points out that the JAP was very popular in India. It was translated to the vernaculars and retold in them perhaps as early as the thirteenth century. In fact, some later retellings and translations of the complete Mahåbhårata base themselves on the famous "Vyåsa" text, but substitute the JAP for the Vyåsa Åçvamedhika Parvan. Within a few centuries of its composition, the JAP almost displaced the Vyåsa Åçvamedhika within the Mahåbhårata tradition. The translation of this influential text, which renders it more accessible to English-speaking scholars and other interested individuals, is therefore very welcome indeed! On the whole, the translation is easy to follow and flows nicely, at least for a person like myself who is familiar with Sanskrit. When translating from Sanskrit to English it is sometimes difficult to avoid transporting the structure of the Sanskrit sentence into the English language, and this often produces an awkward or difficult English sentence. Such sentences are sometimes found in Sen's translation. As in the case of the Vyåsa Mahåbhårata, the JAP abounds with names, terms and oblique references to customs and stories that are not familiar to the general reader. Thus, no translation can be easily accessible to a person without sufficient background knowledge. Sen has done an excellent job by providing many useful footnotes as well as two glossaries. However, he was of course not able to fully explain events and protagonists that are referred to in passing and are known neither from the Vyåsa Mahåbhårata nor from any other source. For this very reason it is surprising that he did not provide an index, whieh is an indispendsable working took for scholars. Besides the translation, the book contains a full and erudite introduction. I find the introduction to be extremely interesting and instructive, with the exception of one important matter to which I will return below.
The overview of the contents of the Jaimin ya Åçvamedhika (both in general and chapter-by-chapter) is of course helpful. The detailed comparison of the JAP with the Vyåsa Åçvamedhika is illuminating, since it clearly demonstrates how different the texts actually are. I can only give a few examples here, but I hope these will give a taste of the character of the JAP. Sen points out that the JAP is structured more directly around Yudhi‚ †hira's horse sacrifice, and especially focuses on the adventures of Arjuna as the horse makes its journey from one kingdom to another. This topic constitutes only a small part of the Vyåsa Åçvamedhika Parvan. On the other hand, he observes, the JAP does not contain even such important parts of the Vyåsa text as the birth of Parik‚it and the Anug tå. Long and lively battle scenes are described. K®‚~a is everywhere. He participates in some of the battles in the role of Arjuna's charioteer and miraculously revives numerous dead warriors, including Arjuna. In the section on bhakti Sen shows that in comparison with the Vyåsa Mahåbhårata, devotion to K®‚~a is much more central to the JAP.
The JAP describes a number of fantastical places on the horse's route that are not mentioned at all in the Vyåsa Mahåbhårata, such as a country of "tree people" and a country ruled by women. The horse is also much more interesting in the JAP. At some points it turns into a mare and then into a tigress, and later it becomes two horses. An important feature is a long "Kuça-Lava" section (Chapters 25-36) that comes right after the encounter with Arjuna's son Babhruvåhana. It tells of a battle between Råma and his twin sons, Kuça and Lava, which took place during Råma's Åçvamedha. This story is found neither in the Mahåbhårata nor in the Vålmiki Råmåya~a. Sen discusses possible sources for this story, and also gives an overview of other myths that have no precedent in earlier sources. Some of these, he suggests, may have been an invention of the author, Jaimini. Sen suggests that the JAP has superseded the Vyåsa Åçvamedhika Parvan because it has greater entertainment value. I suppose most people do enjoy reading about battles and "tree people" more than they enjoy reading the Anug tå.
There is a discussion of the style, a discussion of the inconsistencies within the text, and an overview of versions of the JAP in the vernacular languages. A special section is dedicated to the Razmnama, a Persian abridgement of the Mahåbhårata that was prepared at Emperor Akbar's court. In this text also the JAP is substituted for the Åçvamedhika Parvan of the Vyåsa Mahåbhårata An interesting section addresses the question: Is the JAP really a part of a complete Jaimini Bhårata? Sen surveys the views of scholars, most of whom answer the question in the negative, and adds further considerations. He defends the possibility that the answer may be positive. For example, he notes formal features that suggest that the JAP's narrative starts in the middle of a longer narrative, and argues that the numerous oblique references to unknown stories and to characters not found in the Vyåsa Mahåbhårata can be easily explained if one assumes that the reader was expected to be familiar with the earlier Books. On the whole, the introduction is excellent, except for the historical sections. Sen is interested in two interconnected questions, namely: (i) Who is the Jaimini that composed the JAP? (ii) When was the text composed? To answer these questions, he begins by enumerating works attributed to persons by the name of Jaimini and asks whether the same person could have composed them all. He states quite unequivocally that this is not possible. For the JAP specifically, he reviews the scholarship and concludes that the JAP dates to the twelfth century. Therefore, it could not have been composed, say, by the author of the M må så S¨tra. So far, so good. However, he is not consistent in his historical approach.
He takes Vyåsa and his disciple Jaimini to be real persons instead of characters in a literary work. Likewise, he assumes that the character of Jaimini, who in the JAP narrates the story to Janamejaya, is somehow the same as the author of the JAP. This conjecture, which is in conflict with his otherwise historical approach, drives him to a compromise conjecture. He proposes that the author of the JAP belongs to a para parå, a line of transmission, starting with Vy sa's student Jaimini. Here, in my view, he has left the realm of history and entered the realm of myth. Despite using the term "myth" frequently to refer to stories that may have been "invented," he does not go as far as considering the Mah bh rata itself a myth, namely, as a work of fiction. He considers Vy sa and Jaimini historical persons. Similarly, in the section on the "contemporary society" he does not distinguish clearly enough between the conventional representations of an ideal society found in the JAP (for example, that Bråhma~as are truthful and women are devoted to their husbands) and elements in the text that truly reflect historical change, such as references to image worship or the worship of the goddess Ambikå.
In conclusion, this book has its place on the shelf of scholars interested in the Mahåbhårata, especially if they are interested in its reception history and the role of Mahåbhårata tradition within the cultural history of the subcontinent. It can be used in advanced courses. For example, the Kuça and Lava episode is quite intriguing. It is not for the typical undergraduate student. The introduction is interesting and useful in many ways, but the historical parts need to be approached very cautiously.
focuses on Jesus' ethical teachings (Chapter 2). Nehemiah Goreh initially argues against Jesus as a false prophet but comes to view him as the divine embodiment of truth (Chapter 3). Pandita Ramabai, another convert, encounters Jesus as calling her to humanitarian work (Chapter 4). The Ramakrishna Mission emphasizes Jesus' spiritual discipline on the model of a yoga master (Chapter 5). The nineteenth-century theologian Vengal Chakkarai borrows the Hindu concept of avatåra to view Christ as the definitive divine descent (Chapter 6). M.K. Gandhi raises the example of Jesus' suffering (Chapter 7). Protestant Ashrams emphasize Jesus' social ministry, whereas Roman Catholic Ashrams stress monastic calling and non-dualist contemplation. In the latter context, Christ is a sådhu, j vanmukta, and the all-pervasive cit or brahman (Chapter 8). The "Great Three" twentieth-century theologians Raimundo Panikkar, M.M. Thomas, and Stanley Samartha find Christ present within Hinduism (Chapter 9). Finally, Dalit theologians since the 1980s view Jesus as liberator (Chapter 10).
Each chapter begins with a critical biography or contextual history, identifies a predominant model, and assesses the model for how well it reflects the range of Jesus' teachings and activities in the Gospels (for example, 29, 192, 211, and 252). Schouten has a good eye for development within these positions. Each theme emerges as a conversation with internal tensions and areas of overlap with other models. (The slight exception is the chapter on Dalit theology, which could attend more closely to historical differences between various low-caste and scheduled caste groups.) Reference to the doctrinal standards of the Christian creeds is notably missing, which is, implicitly, Schouten's point. This work, like most of the conceptions of the Indian Christ it surveys, frees itself from the Greek philosophical terminology that weighs so heavily in early Christological debates.
Four "Intermezzos" punctuate the text with brief reflections on Indian Christian artists. Schouten features Frank Wesley's depiction of Jesus as an avatåra resembling the baby K®‚~a, Alfred Thomas's painting of Christ as a sannyås with iconographic features of the Buddha, Jyoti Sahi's hunger cloth linking Jesus to diverse religious experiences in India, and Susheila Williams's crucifixion scene set on a tree in a Dalit village. The book's major contribution is its even-handed treatment of figures about whom the secondary literature is either quite thin or largely hagiographic. Schouten makes generally accessible the work of several figures to whom very little scholarship has been devoted (Goreh, Ramabai, and Chakkarai). He also critically examines hagiographic myths surrounding more well-known figures (12, 22, 90, and 156).
Schouten's choice of figures also widens the academic study of Hindu-Christian encounter. Two women are featured (Ramabai and Williams), and there is a gradual progression toward voices other than Bråhma~as and high-caste Christians. Art forms and service to the poor, as well as systematic treatises and sermons, are examined for theological content. One regrets the inevitable exclusion of other worthy theologians. The absence of sustained treatment of M. Thomas Thangaraj's work on Christ as crucified guru (1994) is rather surprising.
How well does the title's rubric of "Jesus as Guru" cover this material? It clearly fits Roy's treatment of Jesus' teachings in the first chapter, but the category quickly fades from sight. Neither Goreh nor Ramabai articulates a view of Jesus as a guru. Features of the guru model appear in the Ramakrishna Mission and Christian Ashrams, but other models predominate. The analysis shifts to the relative import of Christ's humanity (the historical Jesus, his suffering) and divinity (Christ as avatåra, the cosmic Christ) in the remaining chapters. The concluding Postscript, however, helpfully draws connections across the chapters to revive the guru theme. Schouten argues that the image of guru encompasses much of what the Gospels emphasize about Jesus: his mystical and practical teachings, his authority, his relationship with his students, and his embodiment of divinity. Although Schouten maintains that: "No other concept in the Hindu world has appealed to so many as a fitting characterization of Christ" (268), it is the delightful plurality of Hindu and Christian models that remains with the reader.
Though the cost of this book (around $100) is rather prohibitive, this text could work well in the classroom. Schouten is an engaging storyteller, and his interludes on Indian Christian artists provide stimulating visual counterpoint. Religious studies courses on colonial and postcolonial India might put this focused series of case studies to good use. Theology courses in world Christianity and inter-religious dialogue will find an even better fit.

Michelle Voss Roberts
Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem Life, Vineeta Sinha's ethnography details and analyzes the production, distribution, exchange, consumption and disposal of everyday p¨jå items by Hindus in Singapore. This volume, the first in the Routledge Research in Religion, Media and Culture series, analyzes three specific p¨jå itemsprayer altars, deity images, and flowers-not as religious signs or symbols that point beyond themselves, but as material commodities that establish relationships between buyers and sellers and between the Indian homeland and Indian expatriates living in Singapore. Thus, this book brings together the study of material culture with that of the diaspora, two themes of increasing importance in South Asian Studies. Though these themes are effectively brought together in a Hindu context by Joanne Punzo Waghorne, who focuses in her Diaspora of the Gods on the ways that urban spaces are re-conceived through the construction of temples, the present volume focuses on the multinational economic networks responsible for the movement of these p¨jå items.
After an introduction to her methodology in Chapter 1 and an introduction to the city of Singapore (particularly the neighborhood of Little India) and its relationship to India as "the locus and source of all things relating to 'Hinduism' " in Chapter 2 (50), Sinha details in Chapters 3 through 5 the various ways that the three p¨jå items are obtained and consumed by Singapore's Hindu community. The author's choice of these three objects allows her "to address the interface between spirituality, commerce and consumption in the performance of individual devotion within the home" (63). This interface must account for the role that India itself plays in the status of the objects produced and consumed (114). Though many of Singapore's Hindus are several generations removed from India, their home villages in South India serve as the source of many of their p¨jå items; this geography accounts for the sacredness of these items, more than any Hindu doctrine or ritual might, and relegates local or Chinesemade productions to the status of second-rate objects that, though purchased for their decorative and novel qualities, are inauthentic and not fit for worship.
The author's argument that "physicality, sacredness and monetary value are all concurrently read into a material object…" (123) allows readers to rethink traditional categories in the study of religion, most significantly the sacred-profane dichotomy. Rather than completely disposing of this traditional terminology, however, Sinha allows shop-owners and domestic practitioners to themselves repeatedly call into question the multiple identities inherent in these objects, interpreted as both commodity and devotional material. Shop-owners are clearly aware of the difficulty of maintaining standard business practices while dealing in and handling objects that will be used in ritual performances. One shop-owner states, "It's just a business.…If I start to look at things differently just because it is for prayers, then how am I going to survive here?" (181). But the relationship between buyers and sellers appears anything but antagonistic: shop-owners have purchased images blessed by local priests (128), keep bargaining to a minimum (131), practice (or communicate) a high degree of ritual purity (for example, by not selling flowers that have fallen to the ground [181]), and give advice on which flowers to use on a particular occasion (182).
In focusing on everyday life and on the consumption of commodities, the larger issue of the middle-class remains always just below the surface. This attendance to the practices and values of Singapore's Hindu middleclass has several larger implications. First, Sinha's ethnographic method engages modern and middle-class audiences for whom traditional Hindu caste-based categories are passé, if not irrelevant. Sinha introduces her book by asserting that the entrepreneurs who trade in p¨jå items have "no traditional, historical connection to caste-related knowledge," a disconnect crucial for the commodification of objects required for theistic Hinduism (2). Second, this book's focus on domestic devotion precludes discussions of transgressive acts such as possession and ritualistic healing. But the author makes clear that overlap and ambiguity-qualities of the diaspora that mark it as a site for innovation-definitely occur (26). For example, devotional attitudes and practices are increasingly being directed towards local protective deities; despite the symbolic centrality of India as the source of most devotional commodities, however, many of the objects used in these "folk" practices are produced locally in Singapore. Even more than the ubiquity of Hindu iconic forms on Western designer goods, this geographical shift provides a key component in the rethinking of religious consumption and the reconsideration of the sacred-profane dichotomy, the primary goals of the book's conclusion.
The author's attention both to the significance of basic Hindu objects and practices, as well as to their role in economic relations between South India and Singapore, allows for a wide audience, undergraduate students and advanced scholars alike.

Michael Baltutis
University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh